** Creed, Weathered (Wind-up): "Can't you see the signs?'' singer Scott Stapp repeatedly implores at one point in this follow-up to the Orlando band's multi-platinum Human Clay.
Settling comfortably into his role as rock's reigning spiritual visionary, Stapp sees signs everywhere on these 11 songs, recorded at ex-Tabitha's Secret guitarist Jay Stanley's studio in Ocoee and Trans-Continental Studios in Orlando.
Considering recent events, the timing is right for a break from the venomous tone that characterizes so much heavy metal nowadays. Still, Creed hammers the message so relentlessly that it emerges as an obsession that limits the band's potential.
"I'm trying to find a reason to live, but the mindless clutter my path," Stapp intones gravely on the opening "Bullets.'' "Oh, these thorns in my side. I know I have something free, I have something so alive. I think they shoot 'cause they want it.''
On "Freedom Fighter," Stapp casts himself as the title character, "raging on in holy war.'' Unfortunately, he's armed with too many cliches: "The writing's on the wall,'' he sings. "I'll scream it from the mountain tops pride comes before a fall.'' Later, he wonders "Can't you hear the ringing, 'cause for you the bell tolls.''
Despite a pretentious Cherokee chant introduction (a heavy-handed nod to Stapp's Native American heritage), "Who's Got My Back?'' succeeds as a palpably desperate search for answers in the face of despair: "Who's got my back now? When all we have left is deceptive, so disconnected. So what is the truth now?''
That song also is among those that makes effective use of the band's thunderous guitar crunch, an attack capable of transcending metal's new fascination with hook-bereft sledgehammer rhythms. In its best moments, Creed specializes in a sonic explosion that uses an engaging melody. Too often, the band has a tendency to blast away with both barrels on songs such as "Bullets'' and "Freedom Fighter.''
"My Sacrifice," the band's latest radio hit, imperceptibly crawls into your brain with the same ease of "My Own Prison'' and "With Arms Wide Open.'' Guitarist Mark Tremonti builds the guitar solo to the voltage of a high-tension wire in an interlude that owes considerable debt to Led Zeppelin's "Kashmir.''
The angular lead guitar figures and understated arpeggios that frame "Stand Here With Me,'' "Hide'' and the title track accentuate the band's knack for a good tune. As a vocalist, Stapp hasn't completely distanced himself from his Eddie Vedder tendencies, though he asserts his own style in the catchy repeated chorus of "Hide.''
Hopefully, as he develops that individuality, he'll consider expanding the vision that characterizes his band.
